The present invention relates to a selection device for candy and other sweet confections. The term "selection device" is used to denote an apparatus designed to receive confections, arrange them in orderly fashion if appropriate, and convey them toward a further handling machine, eliminating those of substandard shape and size together with any unwanted fragments and powdered matter.
Conventional devices for the selection of sweet confections generally comprise an infeed chute from which the confections are dispensed loose, usually by free fall, onto a substantially horizontal table provided with a plurality of rectilinear vibrating conveyors. Confections received in this manner by the conveyors are carried along the table toward and ultimately into contact with a plurality of obstacles; these match the conveyors in number and consist in elements substantially of wedged shape, each one of which is installed in a fixed position over the relative conveyor. By causing interference between the wedges and the confections in a given manner, substandard pieces can be removed from the conveyors while allowing the regular confections through to a further production line machine. Conventional devices of the type thus outlined are beset by a number of drawbacks, amongst which, for example, excessive bulk, high noise levels, and the need for frequent stoppages to effect cleaning and servicing operations.
In effect, the selection of candy confections using this rectilinear conveyor table system necessarily dictates equipment of considerable longitudinal dimensions; the high noise levels are produced as the result of using vibrating conveyors, whilst the frequent stoppages are dictated by difficulties encountered in clearing the table of fragments shed by substandard confections, and of powdered waste matter.
It will be observed, in fact, that such waste matter consists largely in sugary substances that are ruinous to moving machine parts, and must therefore be removed periodically if the parts in question are not to seize up altogether. Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to embody a selection device for sweet confections that remains free of the drawbacks mentioned.